Church at Home // Creation

I’m working my way through all the curriculum I put together in my years as a Children and Families pastor; I will keep adding it here in case it can be helpful for you doing church at home with your kids!

This is the first of four sessions on The World God Made. You’ll find the others here:
2. God made people
3. The Rules in the Garden
4. Looking after the World

If you want to sit down and do ‘kid’s church’ with your kids this can probably be used as it is but I also hope that the ideas might serve as prompts for thinking about how you can chat together throughout the week. I hope most of the things needed are accessible or easy to interchange with things you have in the house!

For my kids I’m finding that trying to stick to the ‘routine’ of church has been more needed than I imagined, so for us it works well to sing at the beginning of ‘church at home’ You might find for you that it works better in the middle or at the end or perhaps you’ll want to listen throughout the week to keep prompting conversation instead. Please do pick and choose what works for you and don’t feel restricted by the order I’ve written this in.

I’d love to know what’s been helpful for you as a family to connect with God.

The World God Made – Creation (1)

Start by thanking God that he’s with you. When we pray it’s like stopping and saying hello to God and asking him to speak to us, teach us things and have fun with us today. 

Sung worship

Creator God by Nick and Becky Drake is a great one for thinking about all the things God made. There’s also a version with actions here which you might like to learn together.

Play Time

Toy animals (or pictures of animals)
Chat together about the animals. What are their names? What noises do they make? Who made the animals? God made all the animals. We can look after the animals that God made.

Play dough/plasticine/building blocks or whatever else you can find!
Create your own people from whatever materials you choose. Talk together about how God made everything in the world, and he made people. He made a man and a woman and it says in the Bible that when he saw the people He had made he was really pleased! God made all people and he loves all people.

The World
Look at a globe, maps or a picture (even just on a phone/computer) of the world together. Who made the world? What colour did God choose for the sea? What colour is the land, and things like grass and trees? Use paper and crayons/pens (or collage materials) to make your own picture of the world. In the Bible it says, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ (Genesis 1:1). You could write the verse on the pictures.

Story TIME

When I did these sessions with children at church I used a song to encourage them to sit down for a story, we sung it every week so they knew it always meant it was story time. I’m not sure if I’d use this at home or not but thought I’d include it in case it’s helpful.

Sing the sit down song (Tune: “If You’re Happy And You Know It”)
If you’re ready for a story, come sit down.
If you’re ready for a story, come sit down.
Let’s all gather near, so everyone can hear.
If you’re ready for a story, come sit down.

Sit together to have a story.

Gather together some small bags, tubs or whatever you can find to hold a selection of objects related to the story. As today’s story is about creation choose objects that link to that. You can literally just walk around your house and choose some things which link, some ideas to get you started are:
– An animal shaped biscuit or sweet (like a jelly baby)
– A figure/picture of a person
– Some stars
– A plastic animal or fish
– A bottle of water

Wow… all these things remind me of some of the things God made. Do you think we might be having a story all about God making the world and all the things in it?

Bible

Read the creation story from Genesis 1 in whatever version you have to hand!
As you read stop and ask questions and chat or go look for things.
Some ideas below:

– God made the dark. Shall we see how dark we can make it?
– God made water. What does water feel like? Go wash your hands and talk about what water is like and how many things it can be used for.
– God made so many things! Can you go find something God made? (If you’ve got a garden you might want to go outside or perhaps look out of a window together and see what you can spot!)
– There was one last thing that God made. The best of all these things! He made people! God made a man and a woman, and he made you too! How many other people can we think of?! We named so many and there are millions more in the world – God made them all!

The Bible tells us that God made the earth and everything in it! When we look at all our friends and all the things we see around us we can think WOW! Thank you God for making everything so good!

Prayer

Thank you God that you made the world and everything in it. Thank you that you made us and love us so much.

Let’s go on a hunt together and thank God for the things he’s made. Thank you God that you made… Invite the children to run and find things and each say thank you for the things they find.